Are you trying to ruin the New Year on purpose? Cassandra, I really underestimated you. You're unbelievably selfish!
I didn't reply.
He called. Once. Twice. Three times.
I powered off my phone.
When I'd first won the lottery, I'd been elated—genuinely, breathlessly happy.
My mother had a tumor in her brain. Surgery and recovery would cost at least three hundred thousand dollars.
And just last week, Abner's checkup had come back with a shadow on his lung. Suspected cancer.
I'd thought it was fate. Heaven never seals off all the exits. This money could save both of them.
But before I could even sit down with Abner to discuss it, that mama's boy had already made promises to his mother behind my back.
Fine.
Call it pride. Call it spite. But that money was mine, and I would protect it.
The drive took an hour and forty minutes. I called my mother on the way.
"I'm bringing Rosemary home for dinner."
"Now? Aren't you supposed to be having New Year's Eve dinner at your in-laws'?"
"We had a falling out."
Silence. Two heartbeats.
"There's plenty of food. Come home."
Four words. My eyes burned.
When we arrived, my parents had already set the table. It wasn't as extravagant as the Fletchers' spread, but every dish was something I loved.
Rosemary passed out on the couch within minutes, her small body curled into the cushions.
Only then did I check my phone.
Ninety-nine-plus messages in the family group chat. I didn't need to read them to know what they said.
But one message stood out—from Melody Lambert, my neighbor.
Cassandra, did someone break into your place? A whole bunch of people showed up. They're tearing the apartment apart.
My stomach dropped.
I pulled up the security camera app.
On the screen, Abner led the charge—his parents and his brother right behind him. They were ransacking my home. Clothes ripped from the wardrobe. Drawers dumped onto the floor. Books, documents, everything scattered like debris after a storm.
My mother-in-law's voice crackled through the microphone, shrill and relentless.
"Search everywhere! She's definitely hiding it here!"
"Mom, this doesn't feel right..." Abner's voice wavered, thin and unconvincing.
"What's not right about it?! That's marital property! What gives her the right to keep it all?!"
"But lottery tickets are bearer instruments..."